Address: 611 David Street
Built: 1911
1912 householder: Robert Ledingham, blacksmith and carriage builderThis Edwardian vernacular-style house has a small extending front porch with front facing steps and a tripartite sash window in the front gable. There is an angled bay on the front and a box bay on the right side of the building.
William Y. McCarter built this home in early 1911. (A plumbing permit for the property was issued on 25 February 1911.) The Ontario-born contractor and his sons, Laurence and Robert, built several homes in this neighbourbood. The McCarter family lived nearby at 646 Hillside Avenue (now demolished).
In 1912 this was the home of Robert Leask Ledingham and his family. Ledingham was born in Owen Sound, Ontario in 1865 and came to Victoria in the early 1890s. He and a brother established a successful business as blacksmiths and carriage builders. He married Mary Violet Hoggan of Nanaimo in St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Victoria in 1893. They had four sons: Roy (b. 1894), Wilfred (b.1896), Earl (b. 1898) and Robin (b. 1903). Robert and Mary Ledingham lived in this home at 611 David Street until the mid 1920s. Robert's brother and business partner, William John Ledingham, lived around the corner at 2713 Rock Bay Avenue. That residence, now demolished, was similar in appear to the house that still stands at 2717 Rock Bay Avenue.